Our recent visit to Honda’s Tochigi, Japan, proving grounds wasn’t just about future powertrains. The automaker also showed us some of the advanced technology that’s in the pipeline. Three stood out in particular: Autonomous Emergency Brake, Intelligent Advanced Cruise Control, and Green Wave. All three will see implementation in the next five to ten years.

Michael Austin

Nov 12, 2012

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Our recent visit to Honda’s Tochigi, Japan, proving grounds wasn’t just about future powertrains. The automaker also showed us some of the advanced technology that’s in the pipeline. Three stood out in particular: Autonomous Emergency Brake, Intelligent Advanced Cruise Control, and Green Wave. All three will see implementation in the next five to ten years.

Autonomous Emergency Brake is a pedestrian-detection system that will haul the car to a stop in an emergency, similar to Volvo’s City Safety. The Honda system combines both a camera mounted in the windshield and a millimeter-wave radar unit that scans for objects ahead. This allows for emergency braking at speeds of up to 37 mph, as the radar scans for objects ahead while the camera verifies the object’s shape using a pedestrian-detection scheme. We drove a car fitted with the tech, with a cardboard cutout acting as both a standing and moving pedestrian, and it worked, although the sensation of the car stopping on its own is eerie, even uncomfortable.

The same camera and radar system is used for Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control, which addresses one of the current problems with adaptive-cruise systems. Presently, when a car cuts you off, most adaptive-cruise systems abruptly slows down to establish a safe distance ahead. Honda’s system tracks up to six cars ahead and uses an advanced logic system to predict the motions of the drivers around the car. If there’s a car in the right lane closing in on a slow truck, for instance, Intelligent ACC sees both the truck and car and figures out that the car might change lanes soon (it also looks at lateral movement within the lane), and preemptively slows down to give the car space keeps things smooth inside the cabin.